Omar Abdullah apologises for rape victime list
Indian-held Kashmir s chief minister apologized Friday after his government revealed the names of some 1,400 women raped in the insurgency-hit state during the last five years.
“I tender an unconditional apology to the victims and their families. There is a deep sense of shame over the revealing of names (of the victims),” Omar Abdullah told the state legislature.
On Thursday a written reply by the state s home department to a lawmaker s query contained a list of nearly 1,400 women raped since 2006, giving out their names, parentage and residential addresses.
Abdullah, who heads the department, pledged that “such a thing will never take place again” and said he would “look into the matter”.
He made his apology after the main opposition People Democratic Party protested over the issue.
Kashmir, a predominantly Muslim state, has been in the grip of an insurgency since 1989 that has left thousands dead so far.
The violence has declined sharply since India and Pakistan, which hold the region in part, started a peace process in 2004.
IHK: Eid celebrations mar with protest
Thousands of demonstrators on Wednesday staged anti-India protests in Indian held Kashmir after prayers to mark the end of the fasting month of Ramazan.
Thousands of Muslims poured into the streets, shouting, “We want freedom” and “Allah is great,” after offering Eid prayers in the northern town of Sopore, about an hour s drive from Srinagar.
Geelani addressed a huge gathering in Sopore s main square, urging India to end its “occupation of Kashmir”.
“People of India are our brothers. We have no animosity towards them. We only urge India to end its occupation of Kashmir,” Geelani said, as mainly young Kashmiri men chanted: “Go India, go back”
In Srinagar, meanwhile, police used tear gas to disperse crowds after another top separatist and leading cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq addressed thousands of worshippers as pro-freedom slogans rang out.
Farooq later urged India s leading anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare to “also voice concern over the deteriorating human rights situation in Kashmir”.
“People like Hazare should help us in ending human rights violations by troops in our state,” Farooq told the crowd.
Anti-India sentiments run high in Kashmir where security forces are often accused of human rights violations by the local population. Indian officials say they investigate every claim and punish the guilty.
Hazare ended his 12-day fast last weekend when the Indian government conceded to the former army truck driver s demands for tough anti-corruption legislation.
Police said a woman bystander and a policeman were injured during one of the four clashes reported during the day across Muslim-majority Kashmir valley.
Last year Eid was marred by massive protests and arson attacks that forced authorities to impose a curfew in major Kashmir towns.
Kashmir is in the grip of a more than 20-year-old struggle against Indian rule that has left more than 47,000 people dead.
Held Kashmir inquiry confirms mass graves
An Indian government inquiry says dozens of unmarked graves in Indian-held Kashmir (IHK) hold more than 2,000 unidentified bodies.
The Jammu-Kashmir State Human Rights Commission says in a report that police had claimed the 2,156 corpses were militants fighting against Indian rule in portions of the disputed Himalayan region.
Rights groups say, however, that innocent people have been caught up in the conflict and some 8,000 have disappeared since 1989.
The commission was set up in 1997 after widespread allegations of rights abuses by the army, paramilitary and police.
The report is likely to deepen cynicism in restive Kashmir where anti-India sentiment runs deep and most people want independence or merger with Pakistan.
On the India-Pakistan border, a cold peace
SURATGARH: It has been nearly eight years since India and Pakistan agreed a ceasefire over
Kashmir – long enough for residents to start building brick houses and plant paddy fields up to the edge of one of the world’s most heavily militarized borders.
Indian troops martyr one more Kashmiri youth
The troops killed the youth in Zachaldara area of Handwara during a siege and search operation. Indian army claimed that the killed youth was a militant.
On the other hand, two persons were killed and four others injured in different road accidents in Pantha Chowk, Sonamarg, Pattan and Budgam areas. A man was killed after he was hit by a stone at Shirpora Bala in Islamabad.
Meanwhile, five shops were damaged in a fire that broke out at Bohri Kadal in Srinagar.
India refused to take US dictation on Kashmir: WikiLeaks
An Indian newspaper, quoting WikiLeaks, published that India did not want US intervention on the Kashmir issue.
India also stopped Joe Biden from visiting India on the tour he was scheduled to visit Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. India considered that Biden’s visit to India along with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq would give the impression that India too was a country of the level of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Weeks before the Obama administration appointed Richard Holbrooke as the Special Representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, New Delhi sent a message to the United States that any move to include India in Holbrooke’s mendate would be “unacceptable.”
In April 2008, former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told US Assistant Secretary of State Richard A Boucher that India-Pakistan relations could not be held hostage to the issue of Kashmir alone.
He told Boucher that the considered view of his party was that foreign policy should be based on strategic interests, not populism. The minister termed Nawaz Sharif’s approach as aggressive and said: “Our direction may be the same, but our tone may be different. We will have to be sensitive to public opinion.”
Sharif is more in line with the popular mood, said Qureshi during the meeting.
Sedition case filed against Roy, Geelani
The Delhi Police booked author Arundhati Roy, Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani and others on charges of sedition for their anti-India speech at a seminar here last month.
They were booked following court orders which came following a petition by one Sushil Pandit in a local court on Saturday. The petitioner had alleged that Geelani and Roy made anti-India speeches at a conference on Azadi The Only Way on October 21, a senior police official said. Syed Ali Gilani and Arundhati Roy had shared the dias with Maoist sympathiser Vara Vara, Delhi University Professor, Syed Abdul Rehman Gilani, Jammu and Kashmir University Professor, Sheikh Showkat Hussain, Shuddharbrata Sengupta, Sujato Bhadra and others during the seminar Azadi-the only way on October 21.It is to mention here that the maximum punishment, if convicted, is life imprisonment for the offence.
Resolve Siachen Sir Creek, Kashmir can wait: Musharraf
Former president General (r) Pervez Musharraf says ties between India and Pakistan can be restored almost immediately by focusing on just two disputes – Sir Creek and Siachen, sans having addressed the Kashmir issue.
Musharraf, who recently launched his own political party in order contest the next general elections due in 2013, told an Indian English daily (Hindustan Times) that India and Pakistan can tackle these two issues on the basis of previous agreements – without having to address Kashmir first. Sir Creek, a 96-km strip of water sandwiched by the marshes of the Rann of Kutch, could be resolved on the basis of the findings of a joint survey undertaken by the two navies in 2007, Musharraf told the Hindustan Times in an exclusive interview on Wednesday. Both the navies in my time have carried out joint survey of the creek and its extension into the EEZ (exclusive economic zone) into the sea. So we know the exact conflict area – why can’t we solve it? You can declare it as a no-go area for both sides not to enter, or you could say this is a joint holding for joint explorations to be carried out. I was ready for any solution, Musharraf said about his talks with the Manmohan Singh-headed UPA-1 government.About Siachen Glacier, the planet’s highest battleground where Indian and Pakistani troops have fought sporadically since 1984, he said the two sides had agreed to the withdrawal of troops to beyond certain lines – and the only thing that is left is authentication of the present position.It is as simple as that – and there were many alternatives that were discussed. So this is a very very simple issue of resolving the Siachen dispute, and I believe that while prime minister Manmohan Singh was very keen, it is the Indian army which objected – this is what I’m told, I’m not 200 per cent sure – although the Indian army suffers may be about 10 times more than what the Pakistan Army suffers because of the terrain and weather acting against them much more.Musharraf, who spoke in his luxurious west London flat, said the two sides don’t have to wait for Kashmir to be resolved.
One could easily go one by one. It will encourage and build confidence. There was no difference of opinion.Even on Kashmir, the former general said, India and Pakistan had worked out some parameters of graduated demilitarisation, giving of maximum self-governance, and thirdly an over-watch mechanism involving India, Pakistan and Kashmiris.
Indefinite Curfew Imposed in Srinagar, FIR Against Mirwaiz
Srinagar: An indefinite curfew has been imposed in Srinagar and a case has been filed against All Parties Hurriyat Conference Chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq following Friday’s violence and arson attack on a police barrack in the Kashmir Valley region.
Curfew has also been imposed in Anantnag, Bijbehara, Pulwama, Kakapora, Sopore and Baramulla.
On Saturday, as the valley was celebrating Eid, mobs went on rampage and set fire to a police post outside the Hazratbal shrine.
As security forces tried to control the crowds, a complex that houses the state’s power department and crime branch headquarters, also went up in flames. Protesters targetted everything that symbolised state authority.
“As far as the AFSPA is concerned, we want the repeal of it. Half-hearted steps will not take us anywhere as these are mere gestures. We need a concrete, solution oriented process. The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) is meeting and the government is talking amongst themselves, this is not helping,” said Mirwaiz Umar Farooq.
“It would have been better to make a fair assessment here on the ground and then respond to the entire situation…control the situation first…see that what has been happening for last three months. I wish that both the central and state government turn serious and do something which is required…which matches the entire situation and the crisis,” said Nizamuddin Bhat, a People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leader.
On the other hand, Indian occupied Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah blamed the militant for not honouring their promise to have peaceful processions, and said this would be a huge setback to the peace initiative that was to be announced on Monday.
6 Rebels Killed In H-Kashmir
SRINAGAR,KASHMIR NEWS: Indian troops shot dead six suspected militants in held Kashmir, police said Friday, as rebels blew up train tracks.
The militants were killed during a fierce gunbattle in Rajouri district on Thursday, a police spokesman said, adding that the fighting erupted after Indian troops launched a “cordon and search” operation.
Meanwhile, suspected militants blew up part of the railway connecting Baramulla town in the north with the southern town of Qazigund on Thursday, the spokesman said. The track was targeted near Kakapora village, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of the Kashmiri summer capital of Srinagar.
“Two to three metres of railway track were damaged by the blast caused by an improvised explosive device (IED). The track is being restored shortly,” the spokesman said.
6 Rebels Killed In H-Kashmir was first posted on April 2, 2010 at 4:31 pm.
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